On March 13 and 14 road safety advocates and leaders gathered to discuss the District's progress on Vision Zero, its committment to eliminating road deaths and serious injuries by 2024. The initiative is badly needed—we as a region, and as a nation, face a traffic safety crisis, particularly for people walking.

On average, drivers strike and kill 13 people walking per day nationwide. Between 2008 and 2017, 49,340 people were struck and killed while walking along or across our nation’s roads. These numbers are not only unacceptably high, they’re also, tragically, getting worse. 2016, 2017, and—based on preliminary data—2018 stand to be the three deadliest years on record for pedestrians in nearly three decades.

However, we’re not killing more people walking because we don’t know how to solve the problem —we’re killing more pedestrians because their safety is not our priority. Every two years, Smart Growth America publishes Dangerous by Design, a report that ranks the most dangerous states and regions to walk in based on federal data. Since the release of the previous edition of this report, four out of five states and metropolitan areas, including DC, grew more dangerous for people walking.

Over the past decade, the number of people killed while walking on our nation’s streets rose by 35% even as deaths among motor vehicle occupants declined by 6%. People walking and bicycling comprise an ever-increasing share of traffic deaths, and now account for one in six fatalities on our roads.

Vision Zero is an equity issue

The burden of this crisis is not equitably distributed. Older adults, people of color, and people walking in low-income communities are disproportionately killed by drivers while trying to walk along or across the street.

These disparities are even more pronounced here in DC where between 2008 and 2017, more than 100 people were killed while walking and another dozen people were killed while bicycling. Pedestrians and bicyclists account for almost half of all deaths on DC’s streets, and of those, almost 80% were Black or Latinx or both. Although, if you’ve spent some time exploring the interactive data on the city’s Vision Zero website, you wouldn’t know it. These data gloss over these glaring inequities with thinly veiled breakdowns of crashes by ward and no explicit mention whatsoever of racial or ethnic disparities.

Ward 8 in particular bears a disproportionate share of this burden—and could also benefit the most from tangible improvements to infrastructure. Almost a third of all traffic deaths in 2018 occurred in Ward 8, a lower income and predominantly black part of the city where rates of car ownership are lower than other wards. Decades of systematic underinvestment have left people in Ward 8 without safe, well-maintained places to bike or to walk along or across the street, while other (read: whiter, higher-income) wards benefit from greater—though still insufficient—investment in protected bike lanes, fresh-painted crosswalks, and other critical safety improvements.

No mention of Vision Zero in Bowser's State of the District speech

Local and regional organizations such as the Washington Area Bicycle Coalition (WABA) continue to advocate for Vision Zero, staging rallies outside the Wilson Building and calling for action in response to the city’s commitment to this initiative in the wake of rising traffic deaths.

Last week WABA assembled planners, engineers, public health professionals, elected officials, and advocates from throughout the region for its third annual Vision Zero summit packed with panel discussions on everything from data-driven planning to automated enforcement to equity in the face of historic segregation. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser made an appearance at the summit over lunch for a fireside chat, where she reaffirmed her commitment to Vision Zero and teased a big announcement forthcoming—one that she assured us we would all be very excited to hear.

Would she pledge massive investment in sidewalk repair and construction for Ward 7? Would she commit to redesigning Ward 8’s streets to slow down drivers and introduce intensive safety improvements for people walking and biking at intersections and mid-block crossings?

The big announcement during her State of the District Address the following Monday turned out to be the K Street transitway project in Ward 2 and the indefinite extension of free Circulator rides. While investment in more affordable, reliable transit is absolutely critical for the city, disappointingly there was no mention of Vision Zero nor meaningful steps to move us closer to zero deaths and resolve the unjust burden of this crisis on low-income communities of color.

If DC really hopes to prevent all traffic fatalities and serious injuries on its roadways, it needs to take meaningful action to proactively resolve these disparities. Establishing a Vision Zero Office to carry out this work and banning right turns on red in many intersections are great starts, but they’re not nearly enough. Until DC truly prioritizes the safety of people of color and of people walking and biking in its most vulnerable, under-invested communities, Vision Zero will remain forever beyond our grasp.

The Green New Deal, the economic and environmental plan most prominantly championed by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has sweeping ideas for change in national policy. But what would a more localized Green New Deal for DC look like?

That's the question Councilmember Charles Allen asked while promoting his Distributed Energy Resources Authority (DERA) 2.0 working group. The Green New Deal aims to stimulate the economy by tackling economic inequality as well as environmental issues like climate change. It has as much in common with the three C's of Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal (conservation, corporate control, and consumer protection) as it does the three R's (relief, recovery, reform) of FDR's New Deal.

There are several programs, some that GGWash has covered in the past, that could help DC to achieve the goals outlined in the national Green New Deal Resolution. Some of the requirements (like spurring growth in clean manufacturing) and projects (like investing in research and development) make little sense for the District government, but most do, at least in part. Here's an overview of how DC could take action towards these goals.

Goal 1: Net zero greenhouse gas emissions

First up, energy. DC just passed an ambitious Renewable Energy law that requires all of DC's electricity to come from renewable energy by 2032. But that's only one part of the District's greenhouse gas portfolio, and even in the electricity realm, more could be done. A local Green New Deal could increase subsidies for local renewable energy like rooftop solar; expand DERA; and commit to adding similar projects to every DC-owned property. The more DC generates energy here, the less it buys from somewhere else.

DC could create a District Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that could, among other things, install free cool roofs for anyone who wanted one. DC could subsidize gas-to-electric conversions for residences and buildings; subsidize geothermal conversions, and require all-electric buildings in the near future. These conversions would also help create local jobs.

Next, transportation. The Green New Deal could do more to reduce emissions in the transportation sector by reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and futher encouraging zero-emission vehicles.

To work towards this, the District could take street space from cars and turn it over to transit and bikes; create a congestion fee for downtown; charge more for residential parking permits and on-street parking and eliminate parking minimums; raise the gas tax; expand transit, biking and walking; replace all buses with zero-emission buses; invest in high-speed rail; pass the transportation benefits and equity act, increase subsidies for zero emission vehicles and charging stations, and eliminate subsidies for alternative greenhouse-gas emitting vehicles.

If DC wanted to get to zero transportation emissions, it could also cap the number of greenhouse gas-emitting vehicles it registers each year, and lower it over time. Further investments in composting, recycling, and waste-to-energy conversion would also reduce emissions and provide jobs. It could also invest more in neighborhood schools to encourage more of the 75,000 DC students who go to school outside of the neighborhoods to do so closer to home.

Finally, land use. DC can alter its zoning to increase the density of development and decrease sprawl.

Density facilitates bike commuting as well as transit use, which in turn reduces car use. The District could increase by-right density and ask the federal government to raise or remove the height limit, especially close to Metro stations and high-capacity bus corridors. This doesn't have to be a sacrifice: DC's most beloved and iconic neighborhoods are the densest ones, and most of them would be illegal in much of the country.

Many of the subsidies mentioned above and below would be expected to create more high-quality jobs. More transit, for example, would require more bus drivers and train operators. Solar panels don't install themselves. But creating a CCC for the District would be a more explicit step.

The District CCC could be a guaranteed employment program for the young, for citizens returning from prison, and for the long-term unemployed. It could perform several types of labor-intensive conservation work like cleaning up trash, removing kudzu, building and maintaining footpaths, clearing snow from sidewalks and trails, and planting and maintaining trees. A half dozen states already have a local form of the CCC, so the model already exists.

Goal 3: Invest in the infrastructure to meet the challenges of the 21st Century

In addition to an expansion of transit, a local Green New Deal could invest heavily in rebuilding our streets as green and complete streets that provide adequate space for trees, bikes, pedestrians and the capture and filtering of storm water; and it could spend money on climate change mitigation infrastructure and expanded bikeshare.

Some justice and equity elements are already addressed because so many of these programs interesect with these issues. Safe streets are more equitable streets, better transit is a powerful tool for equity, and there is nothing just or equitable about who's causing global warming and who will suffer for it.

Higher density can also aid in making housing more affordable, especially if more housing is added to detached single-family home neighborhoods, which are often exclusive. Upzoning those areas and adding affordable and “missing middle” housing could help a lot of people.

A local Green New Deal could include funds to construct and/or subsidize housing for low-income, workforce, and lower middle class families and individuals; end detached single family-only housing zoning; and make other changes to zoning that increase density. It could use subsidies to get more services close to residents, similar to the “20 minute neighborhood” plan in Portland.

Paying for all of this infrastructure, cleanup, and employment will cost money. However, DC can pay for it in a way that will also help to achieve these goals.

Some revenue sources like a congestion tax, gas tax increase, and higher costs for parking and registration have already been mentioned. Other possible sources include lowering the inheritance tax exemption back to the 2014 value, rolling back other tax cuts for the wealthy from the 2014 cut, land value taxation, a tax on green house gas emissions, “pay as you throw” trash fees, a tax on meat, and/or a wealth tax. In fact, even if these tax and fee changes were revenue neutral, they should help to achive the goals.

The District has made great strides towards creating a greener and more equitable city, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. A well-crafted Green New Deal for the District of Columbia could become a blueprint for the rest of the country.

This article was first published by the Urban Institute on February 11, 2019.

Bikesharing has gained popularity in US cities as concerns about health, congestion, and climate change have increased. In 2010, the DC Department of Transportation introduced the first city-operated bikesharing system in North America. Since then, Capital Bikeshare users have generated millions of rides, but use and station placement varies around the city.

The DC Department of Transportation clearly considers equity in its bikeshare development plan, and the department used online crowdsourcing to allow residents to vote on new station placement. But is bikesharing reinforcing DC’s existing disparities, or is it effectively acting to reverse them?

To answer this question, we need data. Unlike many privately owned, dockless bike or scooter sharing services, Capital Bikeshare makes anonymized ridership data available online. We focused our analysis only on registered members (who account for three-quarters of the total trips in DC, compared with casual nonmember users) because these riders are more likely to be local residents. View our methodology (PDF) here.

With funding support from the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, we took a closer look at Capital Bikeshare’s potential to address the city’s racial and economic disparities. We placed the 2017 data in the context of DC’s socioeconomic characteristics to identify challenges and opportunities for developing bikeshare equitably. Our analysis revealed two primary challenges.

DC has 276 Capital Bikeshare stations, distributed in 118 of 179 census tracts (66% of tracts in DC). The density of bikeshare stations varies across neighborhoods. Census tracts with the most stations are generally near popular destinations for tourists and residents, like the National Mall.

Areas with higher shares of white residents, lower poverty rates, higher income, and higher college attainment tend to have more stations available. On average, tracts in the top quartile in terms of share of white population and income level have more than twice the amount of bike share stations available, compared to tracts in the bottom quartile

Bikeshare station placement generally follows existing transportation infrastructure, such as Metro and Metrobus stations. About 67% of bikeshare stations are located within half a mile of a Metro station, and 99% of bikeshare stations are within a half mile of a Metrobus stop.

Riders also seem to appreciate stations that are closer to a Metro station. Bike stations within a half mile of a Metro station (185 stations) generate 82% of trips, on average.

2. Station use differs by neighborhood.

A single bikeshare station at Union Station saw an impressive 60,371 member rides in 2017, but another station near Capitol Heights (61st Street and Banks PIace NE) generated only 51 member rides.

The most popular centers during noncommute hours are concentrated in neighborhoods that have low unemployment rates, high income levels, more people with a college degree, and fewer people of color. This trend is consistent with findings from a 2016 survey (PDF) that found 80% of bikeshare members are white.

Use is clustered in high-income neighborhoods

Source: American Community Survey five-year Estimates 2012-2016 and 2017 Capital Bikeshare Trip History Data. Notes: Only bike share stations located in DC are kept in our analysis and maps; as a result, bike trips originating from or traveling to locations outside DC are not included. Neighborhood information for census tract 006202 (Potomac Parks and National Mall) is not presented due to very small numbers of residents living in the area.

Such racial disparity is also reflected by the east-west divide made by the Anacostia River. We grouped DC stations by east and west of the river and looked at bikeshare stations and use, and the equity gap is huge. Wards 7 and 8 (east of the Anacostia river), which are predominately black, accounted for 10% of DC’s total stations, but they generated only 0.5% of the total trips in 2017. While 37% of the trips generated from east of the Anacostia ended up across the river, only 0.1% of trips generated from west of the river ended up east of the Anacostia.

Use is clustered in less diverse neighborhoods

Source: American Community Survey five-year Estimates 2012-2016 and 2017 Capital Bikeshare Trip History Data. Notes: Only bike share stations located in DC are kept in our analysis and maps; as a result, bike trips originating from or traveling to locations outside DC are not included. Neighborhood information for census tract 006202 (Potomac Parks and National Mall) is not presented due to very small numbers of residents living in the area.

These data suggest that people lack incentive to use bikeshare services in these neighborhoods, even when stations are available. The five stations that members used the least in 2017 are all stations added to Wards 7 and 8 toward the end of the year as part of the mayor’s effort to expand DC’s bike network. But even excluding these stations, four of the five least-used stations are still east of the Anacostia.

How can the city use bikeshare service to support its equity goals?

Bikeshare service could improve mobility and connectivity across DC’s racial and socioeconomic boundaries. But our analysis shows that people don’t use bikeshares more just because they are available, raising perhaps the most important question for planners and decisionmakers: what provides incentive for communities to use bikeshares, and what are the barriers diminishing the incentives for certain communities?

Capital Bikeshare conducts a user survey every two years that reveals user demographics but doesn’t share individual-level trip data, making it hard to analyze trip patterns by different types of users.

GPS data, also not included in the survey, could show whether certain neighborhoods are attracting trips by revealing routes and speeds through different neighborhoods. More nuanced data should be collected to boost understanding of how people use bikeshare service.

Clarity in the decisionmaking process for future stations could also be a major step toward involving the community and ensuring equitable growth.

Allowing people to vote online for future stations is a good start, but it doesn’t ensure equitable development. Communities that need stations and better overall transportation access often also lack internet access and the ability to weigh in on how new infrastructure is built.

Like New York and Chicago, DC does not specify how stations are selected based on input from locals, so a thorough community engagement plan is crucial for equitable decisionmaking. (Capital Bikeshare is a public-private partnership venture, and DC’s Department of Planning is actively involved in the planning process. View its development plan here.)

2. Develop infrastructure equitably.

Historic disinvestment certainly contributed to the lack of bikeshare use by people of color in low-income neighborhoods. Lack of designated bike lanes in Wards 7 and 8 could also deter people from biking around their neighborhoods.

If public infrastructure like roads, bike lanes, bus stops, and train stations are not evenly developed, Capital Bikeshare will likely only reinforce the existing divides of poverty and economic opportunity.

3. Ease barriers to access for disadvantaged communities.

Underbanked communities also face barriers to accessing bikeshare service. Capital Bikeshare does not provide cash payment options at docks, so users must sign up for memberships online or pay with credit card and make a $100 deposit. Lacking a credit card or a smartphone could be a barrier for some DC residents seeking to integrate bikeshare service into their travel.

Capital Bikeshare already offers financial assistance programs like cash payment options and heavily discounted memberships, but it’s unclear if communities in need are aware of these programs, and data on their success aren’t available.

Philadelphia adopted an innovative program to remove these financial barriers that showed promising results. Communities in the city also had bikeshare ambassadors to promote bikeshare use in underserved areas. In Boston, doctors are “prescribing” heavily subsidized bikeshare memberships to people in communities where bikeshare memberships are unaffordable but whose health could benefit the most from greater use.

DC’s Capital Bikeshare has partnered with more than 30 community groups to offer need-based $5 annual membership. Such programs are promising for serving disadvantaged communities in DC, but better understanding of the demographics of bikeshare users and barriers to to the uptake of reduced-price memberships could help improve outcomes. In an upcoming blog post, we analyze trip destinations and different diversity measures to gather a picture of travel patterns in DC.

Residents in Arlington Mill and Forest Glen in Virginia have been arguing over the latter neighborhood's street parking restrictions for years. Arlington Mill has little parking available so residents often park in adjoining Forest Glen, which has it in more abundance. On January 26, the county board voted to remove the restrictions, which had banned anyone without a permit from 9 pm to 6 am.

Much has been written about the lengthy, contentious process, but the underlying friction of inequity within both the neighborhood and Arlington County as a whole are worth exploring further as a microcosm of other issues facing our region.

At a recent community meeting before the vote, several attendees pointed out that Arlington Mill apartments are subsidized by the county, and the owners provided no more than one parking space per unit. This means that in some cases, three-bedroom apartments were granted only one parking space. A three-bedroom apartment can house an entire multi-generational family, and they often have significant parking needs. Transit access in this area is limited, so most people have to drive to work.

Residents in these apartments are also more likely to work in a trade that requires a work van or truck in addition to their regular vehicle. But even though these residents need more parking, neither the county board nor the landlords have taken these needs into account. Forest Glen, which is whiter and wealthier, successfully agitated for parking restrictions from 9 pm to 6 am in their neighborhood in 2016 when they argued too many non-residents were parking there.

Tale of two neighborhoods

At the western edge of Colombia Pike, where it intersects Carlin Springs Road, there are numerous apartment buildings and condo complexes, as well as neighborhoods comprised mostly of duplexes. One edge of Arlington Mill abuts a pocket of single-family homes known as Forest Glen. Forest Glen and Arlington Mill have different civic associations, but are part of the same census tract and considered together by the county for issues such as the current parking restrictions reversal.

In a recent community meeting, Forest Glen residents repeatedly said they felt singled out, and argued that they paid their taxes and didn’t get enough back. Arlington Mill residents retorted that they too paid taxes and were contributing residents of Arlington, and the current parking situation wasn’t equitable.

Despite the protestations of residents, Forest Glen is for all intents and purposes a part of Arlington Mill. There is no entrance or exit to Forest Glen without going through Arlington Mill. The two share a newly-remodeled park, and Forest Glen constitutes a relatively small number of homes compared to other nearby neighborhoods and civic associations. Based on data from the 2010 census, its population was on the smaller end of Arlington neighborhoods.

Given the lack of good transit options in the area, it makes the most sense for the neighborhoods to agitate for improvements as a whole, rather than fracture even further over a change in parking restrictions. Many of the duplexes in the area are rentals or have been converted into triplexes and fourplexes, the type of piecemeal densification that can be a boon in areas that lack housing. Here, with the substandard transit options and disproportionately low-income residents, it has led to an extremely high demand for parking.

For example, the duplex adjoining mine is a rental and has about 5-7 vehicles associated with the residents. In conversations with my neighbors, the houses with the most vehicles are renters who work a variety of labor-oriented jobs, from housekeeping to construction. Most of them can’t rely on a bus that might not show up, or have a need to bring supplies or work odd hours that don’t align with the periods when high-frequency buses run.

While Arlington is known for its white-collar consultants and contractors, there's also a need for transit that serves residents who work outside of 9-5 hours. At the meeting, Arlington Mill residents also suggested that the county force apartments to provide more parking, offer parking at a lower rate (some are charging $120 for one parking space), or find an alternate solution for apartment parking.

Differences within and without

Arlington Mill has the second-lowest median household income in Arlington, and is only ahead of census tract 1020.03, which as best as I can tell is almost entirely a single apartment building. The dropoff between Arlington Mill and the rest of the county is stark. At $40k, it’s 36% of the county-wide number ($112,000). There are four tracts that makes less than double the median household income of Arlington mill, and 50 that make more than double.

Image by the author.

Forest Glen and the rest of Arlington Mill have their differences as well, although it’s a bit tougher to drill down without block-level census data that’s less readily available to the public. However, Arlington County did do a demographic analysis using 2010 numbers, which facilitates a comparison with 2017.

The 2010 census data also paints an interesting demographic difference between Forest Glen and the rest of the neighborhood. While more diverse than Arlington at large, Forest Glen is disproportionately white compared to the surrounding neighborhood.

Image by the author.

Arlington Mill has density without good transit options

Arlington Mill is one of the densest neighborhoods in Arlington County that also has limited high-frequency transit access. Despite this, the Columbia Pike corridor is home to a disproportionate amount of Arlington’s affordable housing initiatives, and households here are heavily reliant on personal vehicles to get to and from work.

Carlin Springs is an important artery to get up to Route 50 and Highway 66 (Ballston is in between), but bus frequency is limited compared to its status as an arterial connecting to the Metro lines. Here's a typical weekend performance from that North-South corridor’s Metrobus route, as well as a crucial Columbia Pike route, which tends to have better performance:

Image by Metrohero.

Transit on Columbia Pike is a long-standing issue in Arlington, informing both the initial success of John Vihstadt in gaining a seat on the county board, and possibly influencing his election loss last fall after promised improvements failed to materialize.

Recently, infrastructure improvements in the area have been streets-focused. While these multi-modal improvements are welcome (crossing the Pike in this corner of Arlington requires keeping your head on a swivel and hustling to cross in time), it highlights the centrality of Columbia Pike and the cars that are its primary users.

Arlington Mill (including Forest Glen) is neatly contained in census tract 1022, which makes it easy to take a peek under the hood into statistics that help illustrate the neighborhood.

Census tract 1022.

Despite its relatively far-flung location, a lot of people live in Arlington Mill. 2017 population estimates have it as the second-highest population of any Arlington census tract, only behind Columbia Forest (1028.01), the tract directly south, across Columbia Pike. In third place is the first traditionally-considered-dense tract, Lyon Village (1015), which is along the north side of the orange and silver metro lines near the Clarendon and Court House stops. Arlington Mill and Columbia Forest are also the 9th and 12th densest tracts in Arlington.

Image by the author.

By my count, more than 20 of Arlington’s census tracts are adjacent to metro lines, but of the 20 densest census tracts in Arlington, 14 are metro walking adjacent, one is an edge case and five are solidly not. Those 14 metro-adjacent tracts constitute ~22% of Arlington’s population, while the five non-adjacent tracts account for ~11% of the county’s population.

The non-accessible tracts are entirely in south Arlington and mostly concentrated near the west end of Columbia Pike.

Census Tracts with Population Density > 10k/square mile Image by the author.

Given the population density and raw totals, there’s a strong case for additional transit options along Columbia Pike—something the county has known for a long time.

This scenario isn't limited to Arlington

My household is able to be single-car because I work in a relaxed professional environment with flexible hours. I’m also willing to put up with a commute that’s two or three times longer than driving because I’m able to work in reading and exercise.

While this seems to be a hyper-localized parking issue on the surface, the Forest Glen-Arlington Mill scenario plays out again and again across our region. Anywhere there are discontinuities between where people live and the amenities provided, there will be friction. These issues are only exacerbated when tied up into the personal differences that might exist within a single community.

Arlington County has always had a strong vision for the area’s future, but it took decades for Columbia Pike to begin to be addressed. As these neighborhoods continue to grow, hopefully the county will articulate and execute an inclusive and sustainable vision for our future going forward.

Our blog is powered by an incredible group of sharp and dedicated volunteer writers, and that isn't going to change. However, there continues to be a dearth of opportunities for young reporters to gain paid experience, and we frequently have ideas for in-depth investigations that staff and contributors simply lack the bandwidth to execute. This fellowship is designed to help local journalists launch their careers, gain more of a background in urbanism, and provide our readers with an even richer array of stories from underrepresented voices.

Unlike our current volunteer writers, fellows must have prior experience in journalism (graduate students preferred). They will be expected to write short stories regularly and will also pitch, report, and write two longer-form pieces. Fellows will work closely with me to take a deeper dive into how the region is growing and changing, and will gain the opportunity to hone their journalism skills, deepen their urbanism knowlege, and publish a variety of pieces.

Here's who we're looking for

Can you sniff out a great story? Are you able to take wonky and esoteric subjects and make them relatable to a broad audience? Can you find and highlight the human impact of a policy? Do you have a unique perspective that is currently missing from regional conversations about urban planning? If that sounds like you, you just might be a great fit!

People who reflect underrepresented voices within the Greater Greater Washington community are encouraged to apply, including (but not limited to) people of color, women, and/or non-gender conforming individuals, and people from or who currently live in areas of the region that are under-resourced or have been negatively impacted by historic urban planning policies.

If you know someone who may be a good candidate, please send them the fellowship announcement, and share this post widely with your networks.

This cartographer highlights the enormous wealth disparities in Los Angeles. Putin is spending billions of dollars to revitalize Russian cities. Congestion is usually seen as a bad thing, but it can also be an indicator of economic vitality.

Topography of wealth: Nick Underwood, a cartography and GIS student at University of Wisconsin - Madison, assembled a sobering visualization of income inequality in Los Angeles. He uses topography to display a city of 58 billionaires and some 58,000 people experiencing homelessness, with taller tracts representing higher incomes. Using 2017 census data, he draws attention to the county's west side, where communities like Beverly Hills have become high plateaus of wealth surrounding areas of extreme poverty. (Nick Underwood)

Putin's redevelopment plan: The Kremlin has dedicated billions of dollars to modernize Russian cities. $31.7 billion has gone to Moscow alone, and another $1.5 billion has been spent annually to transform rail, streets, and squares in smaller cities which have been depopulating as residents move to Moscow. The hope is to make them more attractive again and provide an alternative for people priced out of larger cities. In a survey of 14 global cities, Muscovites reported higher-than-average satisfaction with their urban improvements. (Leonid Ragozin | Bloomberg)

Good and bad congestion: Congestion is almost universally seen as bad, but that view might be overly simplistic. Robert Steuteville posits that some congestion can be a symbol of economic health, citing a study suggesting a positive association between congestion and productivity. In short, bad congestion is where people want to go through, but good congestion is where people want to be. Steuteville provides methods to increase the good congestion while reducing the bad, like limiting off-street parking and improving transit. (Robert Steuteville | Public Square)

Fixing road forks: Forks in street grids create dangerous intersections whose intersections must operate with too many phases. Rerouting and condensing traffic flow yields less points of conflict and opens up space for public parks and plazas. Jeff Speck provides graphics and a video of the redesign of Boston's Kenmore Square. This “very forky” five-way intersection that may soon transition from a complex intersection unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists to a public space accessible to all users. (Jeff Speck | Streetsblog USA)

Rising western skyline: The Western US has often been emblematic of post-war suburban sprawl, but as its populations skyrocket, so do its downtowns. As larger cities like Denver and Seattle prepare for their first towers at 1,000 feet tall, more humble towers in smaller cities as Long Beach or Sacramento similarly create dramatic new figures in their skylines. Architects and planners believe that soon these skylines will rival the older, taller cities of the East. Skeptics fear they merely signify gentrification. (Scott Wilson + Aaron Steckelberg | Washington Post)

Quote of the Week

“For travel bloggers and photographers of all tiers, especially those shooting in residential areas, any sense of shared etiquette stops at simply obeying the law and, if you’re really courteous, abiding by the direct requests of property owners.”

Alexandra Marvar in Curbed talking about travel writers and who owns the rights to private building facades when pictures are ubiquitous.

This week on the podcast Laura Loe of Share the Cities in Seattle talks about driving a bus and housing activism.

Bathroom access might be the most visible battle right now in the wide-ranging fight for transgender civil rights, but the issue is more complex than many people realize. Gender-neutral bathrooms are the most inclusive option and bring real health benefits to real people, but in most of our region, they aren’t yet required.

DC, like about half of the populated areas of the United States, protects the right of individuals to use any bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. So does Maryland. Virginia neither protects that right nor denies it, leaving the decision to business owners. But what if the individual is neither a man nor a woman, and no bathroom corresponds with their identity?

This idea, that there are people with non-binary gender, might be a new one to some readers. There are lotsofwebsitesthatexplainnon-binarygender, and it’s worth clicking through a few of them in depth. Non-binary people are those like me who, regardless of their biology or clothing, are neither men nor women. Many use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun, rather than ‘he’ or ‘she.’ In DC and several states they can have ‘X’ instead of ‘M’ or ‘F’ on their driver’s license, and in DC, Arlington, and Alexandria, that will soon be an option in schools.

Some argue that non-binary people should simply be allowed to choose which gendered bathroom they want to use. That’s the status quo, and is a pragmatic solution. But it’s a little like suggesting that DC residents, who are denied the right to vote for congressional representation, should just be allowed to choose between voting in Maryland or in Virginia—it doesn’t respect the identity of the third option.

Gender-segregated bathrooms, though omnipresent today, are a thoroughly modern invention. Less than 300 years have passed since the first gendered bathrooms appeared in Paris in 1739. In the US, the practice wasn’t enshrined in law until the ‘separate spheres’ sexism of the late 1800s. Bathroom segregation is an unusual trend in our recent history, not a universal common-sense approach.

That unusual trend may be on its way out. Universities across the country, like American University locally, haveopened gender-inclusive bathrooms. These are both single- and multi-occupancy, the latter with locking private stalls.

Why are gender-neutral bathrooms so important anyway?

Transgender people benefit from inclusive restrooms as much as non-binary people do. They might not feel comfortable or safe in a gendered bathroom, even if their right to use it is legally protected. In 2009, three years after DC elected to protect that right, 68% of transgender survey respondents were “denied access to, verbally harassed in, and/or physically assaulted in public bathrooms.” More than half reported resulting injuries to their physical (especially urinary) health, which has been echoed in other studies.

In 2018, an employee at Cuba Libre in DC demanded identification from a transgender woman who was trying to go to the bathroom. In 2016, some transgender people, including youth, were misgendered and harassed at Banneker Pool in DC when trying to go to the bathroom. (In 2017, people were misgendered again at the Trans Pool Party event at the same pool, including the police sergeant who's DC's LGBTQ liaison.) Right now, a transgender English teacher in Prince George's County is suing after says she was repeatedly harassed and threatened by students, parents, and colleagues at three schools.

Sadly, the list of such incidents goes on, but all this is to say: gender-inclusive bathrooms help make gender-nonconforming people feel more safe in public spaces. That's why they're popular among the transgender activist community.

Gender-inclusive bathrooms benefit gender-conforming people, too. They're safer for families with children, as parents will be able to accompany other-gender children to wash up without fear. Young unaccompanied children have in fact been violently attacked in bathrooms, though not by trans people. Claims of trans people bringing violence to bathrooms have been debunked by multiplestudies—rather, transgender and non binary people are also vulnerable to being attacked there.

Beyond safety, gender-neutral bathrooms are also helpful for people with disabilities who have other-gender caregivers. Lines tend to be shorter, and because the stalls are generally more sealed without wide gaps between the frame and the door, they offer greater privacy. It’s also cheaper to construct a single gender-neutral bathroom than two smaller segregated facilities.

Maxine Andres, a transgender woman on the board of the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance, says “I’d make them all gender-neutral and take the urinals out. That would solve the entire problem instantaneously.” She continued that the process should be gradual, not requiring businesses to change their bathrooms right away, but only as part of bringing the building up to code during larger renovations. “I don’t think it would be fair to inflict costs,” she explained.

In 2006, DC passed a law, the country’s first, requiring that all single-occupancy bathrooms must be labeled as gender-neutral. Jurisdictions in Virginia are unable to enact such policy because of the state-level Dillon Rule that withholds all powers not explicitly granted by the state legislature.

There are a lot of ways to indicate an inclusive bathroom. Here's one example of an all-gender restroom sign. Image by Like_the_Grand_Canyon licensed under Creative Commons.

In 2017, the Reeves Center became home to DC’s only government-run multi-occupancy gender-inclusive bathroom. Sheila Alexander-Reid, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, commented that the DC Government is hoping to bring similar facilities to other public buildings after that success.

Some bars and restaurants in DC also provide gender-inclusive multi-user facilities, and Alexander-Reid confirms that there are no legal requirements that a business have any gendered bathrooms. Nationally, OSHA has released a best-practices document encouraging the “use of multiple-occupant, gender-neutral restroom facilities with lockable single occupant stalls.”

Even in DC, finding a place to go can be hard for a gender-non-binary person. Many restaurants, cafés, bars, and workplaces have only multi-occupancy bathrooms. DC law doesn’t apply on federal land, which houses the city’s most-frequented tourist attractions. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution confirmed that all visitor bathrooms in all museums are multi-occupancy and gendered, but while there’s no space to add new ones, some conversions might be possible.

The 14th and V location of Busboys and Poets, where with no apparent sense of irony a single-gender bathroom stands behind a shelf of transgender literature and where the sole non-gendered bathroom is employees-only. Busboys and Poets did not respond to a request for comment. Image by the author.

What can you to do make bathrooms more inclusive?

Ultimately, any shift toward gender-neutral bathrooms will be driven by individuals like you. Anyone, transgender or not, can play an important role in making our city more gender-inclusive. So, what can you do?

First, you can help identify illegal single-occupancy gendered bathrooms in DC. Under the Safe Bathrooms DC campaign, you can report noncompliant bathrooms by Twitter (#safebathroomsDC), phone (202-481-3773, say you want to submit a bathroom complaint) or online. The business in question will be politely but firmly required to put up inclusive signs.

You can speak to the manager of your workplace and ask that they install a gender-neutral bathroom, particularly if they're planning other renovations soon. You can point out that this change would comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) best practices. Make it a habit to make the same request at cafés, bars, or restaurants that you visit. Your comments will help steer the conversation.

Finally, as an engaged citizen in your own jurisdiction, you can push for more inclusive laws and facilities.

In Virginia, where local policies are limited, you can push for inclusive facilities in public buildings. For those who live or work in Arlington, County Board member Katie Cristol encourages you to be involved: “interested community members… can write the County Board at countyboard@arlingtonva.us and may also wish to attend meetings of the Public Facilities Review Committee, a citizen-led body that provides input on the design of new public facilities.” Fairfax County has a Citizen Advisory Committee for school buildings and hosts hearings for all proposed public buildings, also accepting comments electronically.

Maryland jurisdictions are capable of enacting DC-like bathroom policies, but have not. You can encourage them to do so by contacting your representatives on the Montgomery County or Prince George’s County councils.

Top image: The sign for the multi-occupant gender-neutral bathroom at the Reeves Center in DC. Image by DC Department of General Services.

NCH studied attacks that occurred in 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Perpetrators tended to be males under 30 years of age, and violent crimes included murders, beatings, rapes, and mutilations. Violent incidents between homeless individuals were not included in the analysis. The organization has produced an updated report on these data every one to two years since 1999.

Victims typically were middle-aged men. On average, 69% of the victims were over the age of 40 and 87% were male. NCH estimated the actual number of bias-motivated violence against homeless people is much higher, since many incidents go unreported.

Though some of these attacks were merely opportunistic and committed due to the victim’s vulnerability in public space, NCH confirmed that many of these violent acts were perpetrated because of a bias against a victim’s housing status.

NCH tracks these attacks to educate lawmakers, advocates, and the general public about the prevalence of violence committed against people who are homeless. Fear and disgust for homeless individuals have led many cities and states to criminalize homeless individuals and deny them services, according to the organization.

Unhoused people are often segregated from society; are subjected to laws that make it illegal to be poor or have their property legally stolen; receive a criminal label; are refused a place to sleep; denied food, bathrooms, and healthcare; are verbally abused; have their existence denied; and sometimes, are attacked by housed community members with a bias against homelessness.

This dehumanization leads to the marginalization of people experiencing homelessness and leaves these groups unprotected.

In this famous speech, Dr. King allegorically tells the story of Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep for 20 years to awaken to a world he didn’t recognize. He speaks on how the United States was undergoing three revolutions in the realms of technology, weaponry, and human rights. He laid out how as a society, we must find a way to develop a world perspective, eradicate racism and economic injustice, end poverty, and find an alternative to war.

DC photographer Phil Portlock speaking at the Building Museum event. Image by the author.

Days later on April 4, Dr. King was assassinated. For the next four days, protests sprang up around the District and parts of the city burned. The upheaval was a symptom of the hurt and anger many felt after the assassination, as well as frustration with discriminatory housing policies, income disparities, underemployment, and over-policing that targeted and disproportionately harmed African-Americans.

7th Street NW in DC after Dr. King's assassination. Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

On December 16, 2018, Portlock spoke at the National Building Museum’s event 1968: Shaping the District’s Future, where I listened to him recount the demonstrations that followed the assassination of Dr. King. His name may also be familiar to Metro nerds because he served as a staff photographer at WMATA for 29 years. He shot many of its projects, including the construction of the Metrorail system.

L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station under construction. Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

Metro construction in Navy Yard. Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

Imagine being a black man born and raised in DC. The civil rights leader who is fighting for your right to exist wholly in this society has just been murdered, your neighborhood is being burned down, and the police are out in force. Through the pain and hurt, you pick up your camera and photograph what is happening because you recognize how important it is to document what is happening in your community.

Portlock also documented decades of DC’s most memorable moments in the social justice landscape, including The Poor People’s Campaign, anti-Vietnam War protests, the Welfare Rights movement, the Free Mandela movement, the 1995 Million Man March, DC Statehood movements, Black Lives Matter, the 2013 Supreme Court voting rights decision, and more recently, immigration and marriage equality.

The past is prologue

Portlock used his passion for photography to “remain awake through a great revolution,” and we are still fighting many of the same battles we fought in 1968.

This event was part of the larger exhibit Community Policing in the Nation’s Capitol: Pilot District Project 1968-1973. A variety of agencies took part including the Historical Society of Washington, DC, HumanitiesDC, National Fair Housing Alliance, Prologue DC’s Mapping Segregation project, and the Spring 1968 Photography and Oral History Project.

Throughout the afternoon, guests were asked to reflect on how the events of 1968 shaped and continue to shape the District. As Portlock pointed out, and what many of the participants’ work signifies, there is still much work to be done in ensuring that we are creating a just built environment.

The Spring 1968 Photography & Oral History Project contains a selection of photos and videos from Dr. King's Poor People’s Campaign, a demonstration that addressed unemployment and the housing shortage for all people living in poverty. Organized by Ralph Abernathy after Dr. King was assassinated, Resurrection City was a part of his campaign. Resurrection City participants set up a protest camp on the National Mall for six weeks. Of course, we are still fighting for affordable housing today.

Vietnam War protests in 1968. Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

Welfare Mothers March on May 12, 1968. Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

Urbanists must never lose sight of why we do this

Many of us got into the planning profession or are self-professed urbanists because we want to see a tangible change in our communities. If you are like myself, my form of activism is creating change in the built environment to create more just and equitable places. It’s frustrating to fight for these grand ideas, just to see bureaucracy, prejudice, and politics stand in the way.

Nonetheless, whether your expertise or interest is in housing, transportation, land use, or something else, I hope we can find a reason to stay committed to changing our communities for the better. We all have the responsibility to ensure that we “remain awake through a great revolution.”

Top image: Vietnam War prostestors in 1968 Image by Phil Portlock used with permission.

Your terrible commute is probably really hurting your health. New methods of urban planning go beyond static spaces and delve into how people actually use them. Los Angeles might charge drivers by the mile to tame its traffic problems.

The heavy health costs of traffic: On average, American commuters spend 42 hours a year sitting in traffic, which adds to their stress and poor mental health. Long-term exposure to vehicle exhaust has been connected with respiratory problems, especially in children. One study found that to save one minute in traffic, people would sacrifice another five minutes of leisure, while another connected commute stress with nightime domestic violence. (Austin Frakt | New York Times)

Urban planning is turning into interaction planning: Social media and user-tailored advertising create dynamic interactions and activities beyond the static physical space that urban planners commonly research. Damiano Cerrone of the Spin Unit research lab calls this new way of thinking “Interaction Planning.” It allows urban planners to analyze space, activities, and value to capture the evolving urban landscape beyond the tangible boundaries of cities. (Valeria Danin | Pop Up City)

LA considers congestion pricing: LA County officials are mulling congestion pricing, converting carpool lanes to toll lanes, and taxing drivers based miles driven. Over the next decade, a per-mile tax is estimated to generate $102 Billion toward the county's expanding transit network, just in time for the 2028 Olympics. Besides reducing Angelenos' pervasive car dependency, officials also need to address growing equity concerns over the costs of congestion pricing. (Laura J. Nelson | Los Angeles Times)

Using “urban rooms” to plan: Singapore, Melbourne, and cities in China have popularized “urban rooms”—large exhibition halls with models of the city that encourage public conversation and education, and allows them to actively participate in shaping their environment. Augmented with digital media and VR, the rooms help provide the community engagement needed for transparent urban planning. Now the practice is gaining traction in the UK. (Tom Dixon + Lorraine Farrelly | The Conversation)

Segregation runs deep in Illinois: Segregation between blacks and whites is worse in most of Illinois' metro areas than in demographically-similar areas across the country. This system is maintained by city and state officials, whether explicitly or through ingrained attitudes. Disproportionate land use regulations, infrastructure development, and public services reinforce this divide, perpetuating the state's legacy of racism and white flight. (Daniel C. Vock + J. Brian Charles + Mike Maciag | Governing)

Quote of the Week

“This is a problem that is rooted in our political culture. It’s a problem that’s rooted in the myths we tell ourselves about who we are as Americans. We’ve always been skittish and uncomfortable with the idea of housing subsidies, or even interventions like rent control.”

Matthew Gordon Lasner in the New York Times discussing why Microsoft might have jumped in to spend $500m on Seattle housing.

This week on Talking Headways: The former and current CEOs of Cleveland's RTA talk about 10 years of bus rapid transit.

]]>Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:52:00 +0000Jeff Wood (Contributor)DC pledged to end homelessness by 2020, yet 54 people died without a home this yearhttps://ggwash.org/view/70316/dc-pledged-to-end-homelessness-by-2020-yet-54-people-died-without-a-home-this-year
https://ggwash.org/view/70316/dc-pledged-to-end-homelessness-by-2020-yet-54-people-died-without-a-home-this-year

On December 20, advocates, faith leaders, and community members gathered for the annual Homeless Memorial Vigil to remember the 54 people who died without the dignity of a home in DC in 2018 thus far. Those who died ranged in age from 25 to 87, with the median age being 57. The average life expectancy in DC is 76.8, illustrating the toll that DC’s lack of universal housing takes on the lowest-income members of our community.

Not only did 54 people die on DC’s streets, an additional 83 members of the homeless community died in 2018 after moving into housing, some from health conditions that likely would have been diagnosed and treated earlier had they had access to housing and health care.

People who died in DC without a home in 2018 by the author.

Advocates say officials are not doing enough to end homelessness

Since 2014, 191 people experiencing homelessness have died in DC, according to Jesse Rabinowitz, the Advocacy and Campaign Manager at Miriam’s Kitchen and the Way Home Campaign, a coalition of 96 organizations and businesses working to end homelessness in DC.

At the vigil, advocates emphasized that while the District has invested more than $54 million to fund more than 2,500 units of permanent housing, funded the creation of a new Downtown Services Center, and invested $40 million for shelter redevelopment at 801 East at St. Elizabeth’s, DC is still not on track to meet its plan to end homelessness by 2020 and there is much more that needs to be done.

Advocates say that the DC Council and mayor need to invest $35.5 million in the budget for FY 2020 for the Permanent Supportive Housing and Targeted Affordable Housing programs, in order to house 1,140 individuals and 177 families. However, earlier this month, the DC Council passed legislation that diverted $20 million from the collection of online sales tax that in 2013 was intended for homelessness services to tax breaks for commercial properties.

Another legislative priority for the Way Home Campaign is to pass the Michael A. Stoops Anti-Discrimination Act, which was introduced in July 2017 with the support of seven of the DC Council’s 13 members. This bill would grant individuals experiencing homelessness protected status under the DC Human Rights Act, but died in the Judiciary Committee without a hearing. Advocates are pushing for the bill to be re-introduced and passed in the next Council session that begins in 2019.

Ken Martin, an advocate with the People for Fairness Coalition, pointed out that in order to save lives, there must also be a focus on providing services for people after they move into housing. “People are dying in wonderful new housing because there are not enough transitional services,” he said. He himself nearly died after being moved into housing last year, and after more than a year and a half in housing, he has yet to speak to his housing navigator.

Advocates say we all have a role to play in ending homelessness

One of the recurring themes of the vigil is that everyone can take action to end homelessness.

The simplest task is to save the shelter hotline, (202) 399-7093, in your phone, so that when the temperature drops below freezing, you can call to help individuals on the street access blankets or shelter (alternatively, you can dial 311). The number also works in the summer, when the DC government activates the hyperthermia alert when the temperature reaches above 95 degrees. If you're in Maryland, you can call state numbers at 888-731-0999 or 301-864-7095. If you're in Northern Virginia, consult this list.

With the DC Council gearing up to pass the FY 2020 budget this spring, advocates will be calling on residents to contact their councilmembers and the mayor to encourage them to fund needed homelessness service programs.

In the DC metro area, the average cost of a home in a majority-black neighborhood is $48,490 less expensive than a comparable home in a neighborhood with few to no black residents, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institute.

This 15% price difference in the Washington region mirrors a national trend that shows how homes in black neighborhoods in US metropolitan areas are being devalued—to the tune of $156 billion in cumulative losses for black homeowners, per the report. The cause, according to lead researcher Andre Perry, is a housing market in which racist policies and practices have negative impacts on blacks in America.

To dismantle the notion that homes are cheaper in black neighborhoods because they live in worse conditions, the researchers conducted apples to apples comparisons of home prices in neighborhoods where the quality of residences and nearby amenities are relatively equal—the only difference being the racial makeup of the people who live there.

For instance, the authors analyzed home prices in neighborhoods in the same region that had similar square footage and numbers of bedrooms, in close proximity to public transportation, commercial districts, and quality schools.

Nationally, the report found that owner-occupied homes in neighborhoods with majority black residents are undervalued on average by 23%, or $48,000 per home, compared to houses in similar quality neighborhoods with few to no black residents. In Lynchburg, Virginia, the price gap is as much as 81%; Rochester, New York peaks at 65%; and Peoria, Illinois' disparity is 54%.

While the report’s multi-colored maps and charts effectively display the disparities that were uncovered over months, Perry hopes it doesn’t stop there. He wants the report to serve as a tool to change a damning narrative about African Americans.

“When people reflectively say after something goes wrong in the black community that ‘it all starts at home,’ I want them to shift talking about this cultural pathology to one of structural racism,” Perry said at a panel discussion earlier this month.

He said papers such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report on “the negro family” has led Americans to believe that black families headed by single mothers lead to poverty, when in fact, decades of structural racism has “infected the housing buying market” to the detriment of black families.

“We must address racism—which is tangible, measurable, and costly—if blacks are ever to benefit from the American Dream,” he said. “Blacks clearly didn’t buy into the market to disadvantage ourselves and we should not shoulder the blame of that reality.”

The report is about housing, but it’s also about educating black people about their value and policing the system that tries to strip it away, he said. “Housing is such a foundation that without this major revenue source being maximized, other parts of our lives start to fall apart.”

]]>Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:52:00 +0000Christina Sturdivant Sani (Fellow)The public restroom bill passes: DC is on its way to more bathrooms downtownhttps://ggwash.org/view/70231/washington-bathroom-bill-passes-dc-on-its-way-to-more-clean-safe-public-restrooms
https://ggwash.org/view/70231/washington-bathroom-bill-passes-dc-on-its-way-to-more-clean-safe-public-restrooms

We are thrilled to report that on Tuesday, December 18 at 2:45 pm the DC Council passed Bill 22-0223, Public Restroom Facilities Installation & Promotion Act of 2018. This a major step forward in addressing the lack of publicly available restrooms in our downtown area.

Bill 22-0223 creates a DC Interagency Working Group that, with the participation of four non-profit organizations and an expert in urban planning, will determine the feasibility of two pilot programs.

One will propose locations and a design for a clean, safe stand-alone public restrooms available 24/7. The second will be a program that provides incentives to private businesses to open their restrooms to the public.

If successful, the latter will be the first time in the United States that this program will have been put in place. The original Community Toilet Scheme was first introduced in England, and it can serve as a model for other cities in the United States who wish to expand restroom access to the public by partnering with private businesses.

Bill 22-0223 invites the participation of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), ANCs, and other community organizations in identifying areas in the District where clean, safe restrooms open to the public are needed. It also calls for a period for public comment once the sites for the two pilots are identified along with a vote from the ANCs where the pilots will be located. A BID will be selected to implement the pilot to provide incentives to businesses to open their restrooms to the public.

Anticipating a possible expansion of both programs, Bill 22-0223 contains rigorous tracking requirements including incidences and types of police reports at and near where the pilots are located and costs of installing, maintaining, policing, and repairing the public restroom facilities. With this information, after one year, the DC Council and government will decide whether to continue and/or expand one or both programs.

How this bill began

Four years ago, following a research-based approach, the People for Fairness Coalition launched its Downtown DC Public Restroom Initiative of which we are members. We decided to launch a campaign to raise consciousness of the need for clean, safe public restrooms in needed areas of DC; educate residents on why they are important and who benefits; and advocate for increasing the number of available public restrooms in needed areas of the District. A DC-based public relations firm provided assistance pro-bono to us as we prepared a presentation, which we delivered to Councilmember Brianne Nadeau in November 2016.

Nadeau directed her staff to prepare a bill that incorporated findings from our research on lessons learned and best practices of other cities in the US and elsewhere that have been successful in recent years in installing and maintaining clean, safe public restrooms.

On April 3, 2017 Bill 22-0223, Public Restroom Installation and Promotion Act of 2017, was co-introduced by Councilmembers David Grosso, Nadeau, Elissa Silverman, and Robert White. Bill 22-0223 was assigned to the Committee on Transportation & Environment followed by the Committee on Health.

The first hearing didn’t take place until January 2018, and then there was little movement in the Council for months, which made us worried that the bill would expire and need to be reintroduced in 2019. However, in the last few months both committee marked up the bill voted in favor of it, leading to its eventual passing today.

A lot of people and groups came out to support this bill

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Nadeau and her staff for both drafting the Bill and marshalling it along the approval process. Our thanks also to Councilmember Mary Cheh and her staff and Councilmember Vincent Gray for supporting Bill 22-0223 and for the hard work and thought put into improving its contents as it moved forward.

Along the way 13 ANCs in Wards 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 sent resolutions to the DC Council supporting clean, safe public restrooms and Bill 22-0223. Beyond that, 24 organizations from a variety of sectors in DC sent a letter to the DC Council supporting Bill 22-0223; and over 2,000 individuals who signed petitions supporting clean, safe public restrooms and urging the DC Council to vote for Bill 22-0223 before the end of this year.

We also received a lot of positive media coverage: Channels 5, 7, and 9 reported on Bill 22-0223; the Kojo Nnamdi Show invited us to appear (twice), and the Behind the Mind Show of We Act Radio also brought us on. Finally, Street Sense wrote four articles on our work, and many other great articles came from The Current, Hill Rag, DC Line, WTOP, and Curbed DC for their reporting.

Finally, our sincere thanks to Greater Greater Washington for issuing two articles on our Initiative and Bill 22-0223 on September 4 and September 14, and for joining us in advocating for clean, safe public restrooms in DC by jointly issuing a petition in October urging the DC Council to vote on Bill 22-0223 and for issuing several calls to action.

We look forward to meeting with Mayor Bowser and her staff to share the research behind the bill, and are available to assist the working group that she will be forming in any way we can over the coming months.

'Tis the season to dispel the dark wintry cold by joining GGWash for a “fireside chat,” stoking courage in government officials who want to actively make their communities better. Many factors lead government agencies to be risk-averse: public input tends to focus on complaints, elected officials criticize actions that upset some residents, and hiring and procurement policies create obstacles to taking action. But meeting the needs of residents requires pushing against this inertia. Innovative thinking and smart risk-taking can pay huge dividends for communities looking to grow with equity and sustainability, and successful leaders have found ways to build a positive culture around risk.

See built environments as our values made concrete: Visit the National Building Museum (401 F St NW) at 6:30 pm to hear author Sarah Williams Goldhagen discuss “how recent advances in neuroscience and environmental psychology prove there are no neutral built environments—but, rather, ones that either positively or negatively impact daily lives. She argues that new understanding of human perception and cognition makes it urgent that we completely re-conceptualize the role of built environment design in everyday life as an issue of social justice and public health.” Goldhagen will be signing her book, Welcome to Your World, after the talk. Tickets are $12 for members, $10 for students, and $20 for nonmembers; you can learn more here.

Wednesday, December 12

Light up your ride: Meet up with WABA at 6:30 pm at the Archives Metro (701 Pennsylvania Ave NW). WABA says, “It's beginning to look a lot like…well, darkness, actually. Between daylight savings and the fast-approaching longest night of the year, it's a whole lot darker out there. Join us for a ride that celebrates the light! We'll show off our best bike lighting, check out holiday light displays, and do our best to brighten up the city.” Register and pay the $10 cost of the ride here.

Saturday, December 15

Deck your hall with the local economy: Check out Appointed (1500 Okie St NE) from 11 am to 4 pm to enjoy a “one-day holiday pop-up with shopping, holiday treats, complimentary gift-wrapping, and holiday festivities! Appointed will be hosting a one-stop holiday shopping destination at their office + production space in Ivy City. This event will feature DC vendors, wreath-making workshops, cookie decorating, and a family-friendly festive atmosphere.” Find more information here.

Sunday, December 16

Party like it's 1968: Jump in a time machine at the National Building Museum (401 F St NW) from 1 to 4 pm to “[c]lose out the 50th anniversary of this historic year with talks and activities presented by the 1968/2018 Collaborative, a group of organizations and people engaged in programming related to DC in 1968 throughout the year. At 2 pm, hear from featured speaker Phil Portlock, photographer, writer, documentary producer, social justice activist, historian, and native Washingtonian.” Learn more about this free event here.

Have you ever sat in a park bench and wondered why it was so…uncomfortable? Often times, that's not an accident.

Arm rests in the middle of a bench prevent someone from sleeping there, and short backs are designed to discourage people from lingering too long. Then of course there's the New York City subway's notorious example of “leaning bars,” which don't allow anyone to sit at all.

This is called “defensive design,” and it's used to alter human behavior and/or limit the ways in which an object can be used, whether it be a bench or a part of a building.

There's also defensive design aimed at animals, like spikes on buildings or ledges that make roosting impossible for birds.

Even streetlights are a form of defensive design—a classic example, in fact. When they became popular in the 19th Century, streetlights changed cities forever. They made it safer to go out at night so more people spent more time out, which in turn drove economic development.

Most defensive design tries to solve some problem, like detering crime. However, some designs specifically target people who are experiencing homelessness, and/or make life more difficult for some people with disablities. As our cities grow, we need to think about who we're designing our public spaces for, and who we treat like a problem and exclude.

The super-Washington region, including DC, Baltimore, and Richmond, should improve the MARC and VRE rail systems including running service through DC. It should finish networks of trails and try congestion pricing in DC and adjacent parts of Arlington. It should improve bus service, promote employer incentives to not drive alone, increase equity, do more with technology, and better fund and govern transportation in the region.

The Partnership, founded two years ago, includes 22 CEOs and is led by financier Russ Ramsey, businessman and sports team owner Ted Leonsis, and banking executive Peter Scher. They worked together on the region's bid for the Olympics, and when that fell apart, created a new organization to help the greater “Capital Region,” from Baltimore to Richmond, be more globally competitive.

Transportation is one of the key issues the Partnership decided to take on; it has released a number of specific issue briefs and the work is culminating in this Blueprint, led by Partnership staff, Thomas Farrell of Dominion Energy, EY's Mark Weinberger, and Kenneth Samet of MedStar.

DC Sustainable Transportation has been working with the Partnership on many of our transportation efforts, and gave feedback throughout the development of this blueprint. Greater Greater Washington's Editorial Board and Advocacy Committee got a look and decided to sign on to a letter of support as well.

We think the recommendations in the Blueprint are, on the whole, the kind of bold and forward-thinking ideas we need to get people moving as our region grows. Our committees disagree specifically with one item and also wanted to point out some areas we hope the region will push on beyond what's in this ambitious document.

To be honest, I was nervous when I first heard this group of CEOs were pushing for big ideas on transportation. Would they just end up recommending ideas like an Outer Beltway/new Potomac River highway bridge, a bad idea that keeps coming back because it has intuitive appeal for people driving despite analyses that say it won't help? Or would they be distracted by shiny vaporware ideas like the hyperloop, which is still mostly hype and not much loop? The answer: No. The Outer Beltway is not in the Blueprint, nor is hyperloop, and this document is far from ignorant. Quite the opposite.

Priorities, Solutions, and Actions

The Blueprint is structured around four Priorities, seven big Solutions, and within each Solution, a set of Actions.

Here are the Priorities that undergird the Partnership's approach to transportation (things in quotes are their words; others are paraphrases):

”Connect the Super-Region”: Get people between the Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond metro areas.

”Improve the Consumer Experience”: Get people around better, faster, more reliably, more conveniently, etc.

There are already trains between the major cities of the super-region. Some people commute on them, but they could serve so many more people if they were faster, more frequent, and reliable. State governments wring their hands over traffic on I-95 and the BW Parkway; better train service is a great approach.

The obstacles to more and better train service lie in a few choke points which need replacing: the Long Bridge over the Potomac, Union Station, the B&P tunnel in Baltimore, and limited platforms at BWI. The Blueprint recommends steps for the state governments, Congressional delegations, Amtrak, and others to get things moving on these priorities. It also recomemends creating redevelopment compacts for Union Station, Baltimore Penn Station, and Staples Mill station in Richmond.

When the Long Bridge and Union Station projects are done, two of the biggest hurdles to integrating MARC and VRE service will have fallen. Connecting the two into an integrated commuter rail system, or at least sending MARC trains to Alexandria, has long been a good idea and is even more so now with Amazon in Crystal City. The Blueprint recommends the Council of Governments (COG) and the states do a feasibility study and MARC and VRE start coordinating any purchases of new equipment now with this end in mind.

What GGWash committees think: This is all much needed. We'd also like to see a focus on Richmond's Main Street station and the tracks to get there. Trains often face delays getting into downtown Richmond, but it's important to have good service there to support walkable urbanism and transit-oriented development in Richmond.

More reliable roads and trails

The Blueprint doesn't recommend criss-crossing the region with new highways. Instead, it focuses on making our road system work better, and also building and connecting bike and walking trails.

It recommends a network of “performance-driven tolling” lanes, like the ones already around the region which charge single-passenger vehicles but not carpools. The Partnership previously created a set of principles for such lanes, much of which makes sense, like using revenues not just on the road in question but for travel generally, including transit; ensuring equity; and focusing on moving people, not vehicles.

Tolling makes sense as a way to manage road capacity. But if it's used as a way to add more highway lanes and move more cars, that's counterproductive to helping the region grow sustainably. Like Maryland Governor Larry Hogan's plans to toll and widen the Beltway, I-270, and BW Parkway, which the Blueprint endorses and we don't.

There's another good tolling-oriented big idea in the Blueprint: congestion pricing. The Blueprint suggests DC, Virginia, and COG study the potential for congestion pricing, which would put a price on driving in a set zone, perhaps just downtown DC or perhaps larger, like one including the future Amazon areas or others in Arlington. This is already part of DC's MoveDC plan and the Sustainable DC plan. And it might be the only way to keep traffic from increasing with growing use of Uber and Lyft and, in the future, autonomous vehicles.

The third idea in this section is trail networks in each of the cities. Baltimore and DC have trail network plans, and the straightforward Blueprint recommendation is to implement them. Richmond, on the other hand, needs to create a trail network plan and then build it.

What GGWash committees think: Two thumbs up to congestion pricing and trails. There's a lot good in the “performance-driven tolling” brief, but we don't agree with the way the document endorses Hogan's widening projects. This is the one major piece of the Blueprint we disagree with. Also, while the Blueprint says funding from the Hogan projects should contribute to the American Legion Bridge and adding transit, but that might mean widening the bridge. A better statement would ensure that all of the revenue fund projects, including bike/ped projects, that reduce car dependence.

Better, more integrated transit

Since the first section already covered regional rail, this transit section takes each of the three sub-regions individually. This is restating a lot of what the Partnership had previously recommended in a “Rethinking the Bus” brief.

Baltimore quite simply needs a lot more transit and a regional plan for it. The Blueprint recommends that, and also asks the MTA to report more information like on-time performance for each route and time of the day.

Richmond also needs more transit, particularly to the surrounding counties which have low transit accessibility, the Blueprint says.

For Washington, there are already buses to most parts of the region. The challenge in Washington is to better integrate all of the region's bus providers and implement bus priority corridors with dedicated lanes and other treatments to speed up buses.

What GGWash committees think: These are good ideas. The main suggestions we have are around transit ideas not listed in this document. It's understandable that with many CEOs who need to sign off, perhaps some transit ideas got consensus and some need more discussion. There's lots of transit here, and this doesn't have to be exhaustive. Still, it's notable that Metro doesn't appear in this section; we feel that ensuring a healthy Metro is an absolute must. More statements about repurposing surface travel lanes for bus or light rail, beyond the ones that are already in existing plans, would also be valuable.

Employer commute programs

It doesn't get as much attention as flashy infrastructure like roads and rails, but employers can do a lot (or not do a lot) to help people find and use alternatives to driving alone. This is called Transportation Demand Management, and some jurisdictions, like Arlington, do a lot to encourage employers along these lines. The Blueprint suggests doing more of it.

For instance, it says, the super-region gained 200,000 jobs from 2013 to 2016 but about 70% of them involved driving alone, adding 153,000 car commutes to area roads. Meanwhile, downtown Seattle added 60,000 jobs from 2010 to 2017 but actually reduced car commutes by 4,500. (Arlington says it, too, has kept traffic from increasing as its population has grown, thanks to many of these measures).

The Blueprint enumerates five “core employer mobility programs” and a larger set of “innovative mobility programs.” The Partnership wants to create a “challenge” to ask all employers to implement all five of the “core” programs and at least two of the “innovative” ones. Also, area governments and COG could set metrics and do region-wide surveys to track the impact of TDM measures.

It also says many employers find it cumbersome to take advantage of public benefit programs, which could be streamlined. And transit and bikeshare agencies could offer bulk purchases at a discount (like the Metro U-Pass available to American University students).

What GGWash volunteers think: These are good. Showers are also important along with secure bike parking to encourage cycling. The “innovative” items around parking, like charging for parking or cash-outs, ideally would be measures all employers take. As structured, the “innovative” list includes some really mode-altering ones, and some, like having a coordinator, which are a good idea (and who knows, maybe have a really big impact!) but are also a lighter touch.

Equity in transportation

The Partnership convened a group of organizations to explore policies to reduce or eliminate historical inequities in transportation. This included people from Morgan State University, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, UMD, the Richmond City Council, Transportation for America, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, AFL-CIO, Howard University, Brookings, and Urban Institute. The group settled on two specific recommendations.

The first is to expand preferences for contractors who hire “local residents, veterans, or unemployed community members.” Some area jurisdictions and agencies allow such preferences or require measures that favor contractors who do this, but other jurisdictions do not. The Partnership is recommending state and federal policies to favor this, noting that such policies keep revenue inside the local community and create career pathways for people in economically disadvantaged communities.

The second recommendation is around transit-oriented development. Jurisdictions should encourage building homes and jobs near transit, which makes them more accessible to people who can't afford cars. Also, new transit in lower-income areas should come with a “corridor community preservation and improvement plan” to protect against displacement in the nearby communities.

What GGWash volunteers think: These are good steps, though it's also certain the discussions covered a lot more than is here. For instance, TOD is great, but it's particularly important to add jobs on the east side of the region, and the Blueprint doesn't talk about this issue, known as the east-west divide. With jobs disproportionately located in the western parts of the region, residents to the east face longer commutes and have fewer employement options. The divide is also inefficient for transportation: A 2016 WMATA study found that growing jobs on the east side could swing Metrorail from running a deficit of $350 million a year to a $270 million surplus. Or even if a surplus is not so realistic, even leaning more toward east side growth than today's unbalanced pattern could save tens of millions.

That's not so easy, for sure; it's hard to tell governments of west side counties that they ought to compete less fiercely to woo new employers, and employers have their own reasons for preferring to cluster. But the status quo has its own big price, both in dollars and equity.

Similarly, really advancing equity in transportation also involves issues of providing affordable housing and affordable ways for people to live nearer their jobs. The Blueprint makes a start here at addressing a very large and important issue.

Technology is advancing all the time, and the Blueprint highlights a number of ways to use technology for better mobility in the super-region.

One valuable but less sexy step is for all of the governments and transportation agencies in the region to share the data they collect about travel demand and performance, maintaining people's privacy, and aid local research universities in analyzing it.

A second proposal: push “integrated mobility platforms” that let travelers plan, book, and pay for trips across modes like transit, bikeshare, ride-hailing, and more. This is a proposal the Partnership has already explored in a report, which author David Zipper wrote about in a set of posts for GGWash. Other cities around the world have been experimenting with this promising idea.

The Blueprint recommends deploying “smart traffic signals,” where video cameras and sensors detect real-time conditions and make adjustments. Notably, it also asks DOTs to “recommend best practices for traffic signal hierarchy prioritization for private vehicles, shared vehicles, transit vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians.” That means it's not simply saying the goal of the signals is to move cars as fast as possible, but serve all road users and move people rather than vehicles.

Finally, autonomous vehicles are coming, eventually, and the Partnership wants to see regional governments work together to plan strategy for these instead of doing everything inside their individual boxes. Through DCST, I'm currently coordinating a DC-funded study of autonomous vehicles and their impact on the District. Having regional coordination is a good idea, and we plan to communicate with officials in Maryland and Virginia as part of the study (but it's true that the study will mostly look at DC because that's who's funding it).

What GGWash committees think: There's a lot that can be said about all of these topics, including what's said and more that could be also. On smart signals, it's great to ask for a study of performance metrics, and the Blueprint says, “Blindly prioritizing improvements for private vehicle movement at intersections can limit the growth of transit ridership, biking, and walking—growth that the region’s state and regional transportation plans seek to support.” Any ways to strengthen this point and remind DOTs they aren't simply using signals to speed up motor vehicles is important.

On autonomous vehicles, clearly this could be a whole Blueprint on its own. This section, and others, could also talk more about freight. More broadly, let's be clear that we're facing a similar situation as when cars first came to cities. They're a big opportunity, but also a danger. Blindly racing to embrace new technology here could amount to making the same mistakes the United States did in the 20th century with automobiles. Thoughtful planning can turn autonomous cars to improve life for residents instead of making it worse.

But the Blueprint isn't trying to say everything right now. Better regional coordination is a no-brainer.

Governance! Money!

Transportation makes up a lot of governments' budgets. Some jurisdictions, like Virginia, have a rigorous system for evaluating the costs and benefits of various investments and procedures that push for decisions to follow this data. A lot depends on how the formulas work, but Virginia's done a pretty nice job of it on the whole. The DC region's Transportation Planning Board also does it.

DC doesn't at all. The Maryland legislature just established a new system to do this, which was slowed down last year amid complaints by Republicans who wanted to keep funding roads in lightly-populated areas that might not score well.

The Blueprint recommends that DC start using performance metrics, as should the Metropolitan Planning Organizations for Baltimore and Richmond, the BMC and RRTPO respectively, as well as WMATA (WMATA has a process for its repair projects, but it's not transparent). And it recommends that all MPOs create clearer standards that include equitable access as “a primary performance measure.”

The Maryland MTA operates and plans Baltimore transit, and the MTA is controlled by the governor, making some decisions very political. Having direct state control of transportation is unusual nationally, and the Partnership recommends creating a new governance structure that involves the city and counties as well. This, they hope, will reduce the degree to which changes in governors whipsaws Baltimore projects like the now-canceled Red Line from hot to cold and maybe back again.

Finally, funding. Most transportation depends on the federal gas tax, which hasn't kept up with inflation. It was last raised in 1993, and now essentially brings in 40% less than it did 25 years ago. The Partnership suggests exploring higher gas taxes and other revenue sources. Gas taxes also break down if vehicles are eletrified, which they need to be if we're to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And more fuel-efficient vehicles also reduce revenues while still putting wear and tear on roads. The Blueprint recommends experimenting with other funding sources like a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee.

What GGWash committees think: Good ideas here. In addition to Baltimore, it might be worth considering a regional entity for Montgomery and Prince George's counties also, similar to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. On revenue sources, calling for more exploration/discussion is great, but at some point it has to turn into concrete proposals. A VMT fee will be controversial, but is absolutely worth further work. Let's hope the CEOs of the Partnership are willing to really push for actual change here.

Overall thoughts

Our volunteer committees agreed with signing onto this, with the specific caveat that we aren't in agreement about widening highways like the Beltway, 270, and the BW Parkway with toll lanes. On the other hand, they appreciate that this document is looking at tolls instead of blindly adding unpriced road capacity.

Members noted that as an explicitly super-regional document, there's more focus on long-range and suburban travel and fewer items about urban mobility, Metro, BRT, or affordable housing. They recognized that one Blueprint couldn't say everything and know that this reflects the places the staff, CEOs, and stakeholders could reach consensus, but this should be a starting point, not an end, for many conversations.

The regional Transportation Planning Board, which comprises elected officials from around the Washington region, just issued Visualize 2045, a long-range transportation plan. That includes seven aspirational ideas which have a lot in common with the Blueprint: both talk about building around under-utilized Metro stations, about bus priority/BRT, about employer incentives to not drive alone including telecommuting, about bike trails, and about toll highways.

Sometimes the Blueprint is more ambitious, like on bike trails and commuting incentives; sometimes the reverse, and with a few exceptions this Blueprint is more focused on specific ideas for intergovernmental coordination than big-ticket infrastructure. And the TPB focused on Metro while the Partnership looks more at commuter rail, but both are important.

Overall, it's promising to see agreement on these priorities. It's also promising that the really bad ideas, like the Outer Beltway, are left off both lists. Not only is there a growing consensus on top items, but a more and more firmly established stance to move past destructive ideas of the past and look to future solutions.

What do you think of this long list of ideas? What are the best ones? What's missing?

This article was originally published by the DC Policy Center as a part of Racial Equity in DC, a project commissioned by the Meyer Foundation and the Consumer Health Foundation. It is part of the DC Policy Center's ongoing research to generate data and analyses on the District of Columbia's economy and demography.

Housing is the great stage on which a city is built

Housing defines how residents share the wealth created by a city and how they access its assets and amenities. Population growth and demographic changes make their imprints through the housing market, shaped by how quickly supply responds to changes in demand. When housing is constrained, these forces deliver gentrification, economic and racial segregation, and displacement.

The District is experiencing what happens to a city when that stage is broken.

The District’s phenomenal population growth and the accompanying economic boom has completely changed it, but not always for the better. The city is clearly richer, but it is also less inclusive and more segregated. Many new families are now settling in the city—a promising sign of city’s increasing attractiveness, including better schools and other amenities that appeal to families. Families that make over $200,000 now comprise 22% of all families compared to 14% in 2010,[1] and these families increasingly settling in central parts of the city.

But poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated in other parts of the city: There are 21 census tracts in the greater metro area where more than 40% of households are in poverty—twice as many as they were in 2010—and all of these neighborhoods are in Washington, DC. In some parts of Ward 7 and 8, the neighborhood-level poverty rate is over 60%.

And that kind of inequality is measured just on income flows. The picture changes for the worse when one includes the most valuable asset a household owns: its own home.

Housing is among the greatest sources of wealth in the District

In 2018, the homes in DC were collectively worth $137.5 billion in the eyes of the city’s tax assessors.[2] This is an amount equivalent to 1.5 times the value of all goods and services produced in DC that year,[3] and more than five times the income earned by District residents.

Here is another way to think about it: If you were to fold the value of these homes into one single bond that pays a dividend for eternity with a 3% interest, each and every DC resident would receive $6,000 per year. For a family of four, that is $24,000—the difference between nothing and being out of poverty.

Of this housing wealth, $68 billion belongs to 100,074 homeowners[4]—and how much of this wealth they hold depend on where they live, what type of a home they own, and how long they have owned it. To be sure, this great source inequality in wealth associated with home ownership, both stemming from homeownership and the great variations in the value of housing across the city, has deep historical roots. National housing policies—including redlining, restrictive covenants, lack of access to FHA and VA loans—have kept communities of color from homeownership.

In DC, urban renewal wiped out almost all of Southwest’s buildings, forced out 15,000 businesses, and displaced 23,000 residents, 70% of who were Black and 90% of whom were poor. The District’s own policies played a role too: Almost half of the displaced residents moved to far southeast, where 75% of the land was zoned for apartments—a policy with implications lasting today.

However, current practices also contribute to the growing housing inequalities.Wealth associated with housing grew especially quickly since 2000, with the population boom. Demand for housing increased, but supply did not. Restrictive zoning, resistance to new development among DC residents, and the disparate nature of neighborhoods in the District—both in public and private investments—have put great pressure on housing prices, especially in some parts of the city.

As a result, wealth created by a growing economy and increasing public and private investments is largely capitalized in housing—and as I will show, not in newly built housing, but in housing that already existed in the city before the population boom, sucking out a great share of the value created by hard work. Increasing housing burdens have pushed many residents out of the city, or to neighborhoods with few public and private amenities; these dynamics further deepen poverty and economic segregation, which goes hand-in-hand with racial segregation in the District of Columbia.

Home ownership and the wealth associated with it eludes communities of color

According to Census estimates, only 36% of households headed by a Black DC resident own the home they live in, compared to 47% of households headed by a white resident.[5] Of the 120,000 households headed by a Black resident, 73,500 rent their homes. In addition, Black homeowners hold a meager share of the housing wealth—largely because of where they live. To wit, four wards—2,3,4 and 6—account for 72% of all wealth embedded in owner-occupied housing.

In contrast, Ward 7 accounts for 4%, and Ward 8, only 2%. In Wards 7 and 8, for example, 66 and 78% of single-family homes are assessed at or under $250,000 respectively, and not a single home is assessed over $750,000 in 2018. In Ward 2, only 8% of single-family homes are assessed at a value less than $750,000; in Ward 3, this share is only 6%.

Even when controlling for housing size, the value disparities are great: most homes east of the Anacostia River are estimated to be valued at around $111 per square foot, compared to $450 to $800 in parts of the city west of the Rock Creek Park.

Changes in home ownership patterns follow the District’s Great Demographic shift

The District of Columbia has experienced a great demographic shift since 2000, rapidly expanding its population and changing its makeup. There are 130,000 more residents in the city compared to 2000, and Black and African American residents are no longer the majority (at 47%).

This change happened twice as fast for Black residents than it did for the White population in DC during this period of time.While the number of Black residents in DC declined sharply after the 1970s, the trend continued through recent years: 38,000 Black residents left the city between 2000 and 2010. During that period, District’s Black residents moved out of every ward except for Ward 8, and the draining of Wards 1, 4, 5, and 6—with neighborhoods traditionally home to middle and upper-middle-income African American families—was especially rapid. Many of these residents settled in Prince George’s county, but some moved out further.

Since 2010, the Black population has been increasing, but not as fast as other races and ethnicities. Between 2010 and 2016, 11,473 Black residents have moved into the city, especially into Ward 8 (some of them might have moved from central parts of the city), but growth is also strong in Ward 7 (again attracting middle and upper-middle income Black residents from elsewhere in the city) and burgeoning in Wards 3 and 4. The decline of Black population in Wards 5 and 6 appears to have slowed down, but continues downtown.

The influx of White residents into DC, in comparison, has been going strong since 2000 without any signs of slowing down. Between 2000 and 2010, 33,000 new White residents (on net) moved into the city, and majority of them settled in downtown, Capitol Hill and the surrounding areas. According to Census Bureau data, just over 14,000 White residents moved into Ward 6, and another 15,000 into the Downtown areas in parts of Wards 1 and 2.

These included the first round of gentrifiers: young professionals who can easily move into parts of the city that had not been very friendly to families. Ward 5 received about 5,000 new White residents, and White families continued to leave Ward 3 and Ward 8. The growth in the District’s White population has grown stronger since 2010, and there has been a baby boomacross all income levels. Over this time period, roughly 45,946 new White residents moved into the city, settling in every Ward, but especially in Wards 1, 4, 5, and 6.

The number of owner-occupied homes has increased, but this is mainly because of newly-constructed condominiums

The population boom has increased home ownership, but mostly because of the increases in the number of owner-occupied multifamily units—especially condominiums that have been newly constructed. In 2006—the first year for which we have reliable tax assessment data—there were 91,277 market rate owner-occupied units in the city.[6] In 2018, this number stands at 96,000—a meager increase. But hidden in that number is also a shift in the types of homes residents own: Between 2006 and 2018, the number of single-family homes occupied by their owners actually declined by 1,649 units, while the number of owner-occupied condominiums increased by 6,428.

Wards 1, 5, and 7 account for all the net increase in home ownership (4,500 out of 4,700). For example, in Ward 1, we find over 4,100 new condominiums, over half occupied by their owners. In contrast, single-family homes declined by 823 (many razed to make room)—and owner-occupied single-family homes by about half that. Wards 5 and 6, where gentrification has been most rapid, are the only places where home ownership increased both in single-family and multi-family properties. Ward 5 added 2,000 new condo units, half owner-occupied, and Ward 6 added 3,350, again about half (1,281) occupied by their owners.

There are fewer owner-occupied homes in Wards 2 and 3, but overall still more of the owner-occupied units are here in these Wards, with some neighborhoods where home ownership rates are close to 90%. There has been no change in Ward 7, where the number of all units only increased by about 1,000. The only Ward where single-family home ownership increased faster than multi-family units is Ward 8, and that is due to fewer new constructions.

While growth in home ownership is due to new construction, the growth in value has been capitalized in older residential units

Between 2006 and 2018, housing values measured by their assessed values appreciated much faster than the growth in owner-occupied units. To wit, the median assessed value of owner-occupied homes increased from $320,000 to $535,000 between 2006 and 2010. The odds of finding an owner-occupied home assessed under $350,000 is now 30% lower compared to 2006, and the odds of finding one over $800,000 is 16% higher.

The rapid appreciation in housing values is the result of the great demographic shift. Housing values (measured by the sale prices and not assessed values) remained stable through 1990s, but rapidly appreciated between 2000 and 2018, except for a brief period of decline through the Great Recession. If you bought your house in DC before 2000, you could be sitting on an asset at least three times more valuable than what you bought. This is a return six times the increase the Consumer Price Index during this time.

That difference is what economists call “rent”—an earning not related to productivity or output, but purely delivered by happenstance, like the income differential between a talented painter and a mediocre one. So, if you bought a house in DC in 2000 for $200,000 (in today’s dollars) and sold it for $600,000 in 2017, $332,000 of your $400,000 “profit” is because the housing supply in the District cannot grow fast enough to meet the housing demand.

Importantly, more of this new wealth in housing has capitalized in existing homes and not new construction.Much of the housing that exists is because developers bought the land and built the housing they thought they could sell or rent. The late growth in housing supply in DC has been entirely driven by new multi-family units, as developers are rushing to meet the demand from young singles and couples in parts of the city that offer amenities these new residents demand.

As such, the growth in owner-occupied housing has been a function of new construction of condominiums. Between 2006 and 2018, the District’s single-family housing stock tracked by its real property tax database shows a net increase by a total of 1,820 units (2% growth)[7], whereas condo units increased by 22,256 (50% growth). In contrast, the assessed value of all single-family homes (whether owner-occupied or rented) increased by $24.8 billion during this period (63%, or 31 timesthe growth in the size of the stock) compared to $15.5 billion for all condominiums (140% or less than three times the growth in the size of the stock).

To be sure, this single-family unit premium partly reflects the tastes and preferences that favor larger units with a backyard. But it also reflects the value of amenities in parts of the city which holds these types of units: Better schools, safer neighborhoods, access to transportation, and things that improve one’s quality of life—all of which reflect the quality and quantity of public and private investments in these neighborhoods.

Overall assessed values of owner-occupied single-family homes increased by over $3 billion in Wards 3 and 4, while the number of owner-occupied single-family units have declined by more than a combined 1,000. Restrictions to new development in these neighborhoods, and a lack of investment in parts of the city that do not have attractive amenities, amplify this premium and place it in the hands of those who could afford to live in highly resourced neighborhoods.

We cannot know the race or ethnicity of homeowners from the available data on the real property tax base. But comparing the growth in owner-occupied housing since 2006 both by the number of units and the value of these units show that increased values eluded communities east of the river. Going back to the maps of demographic change, these also show that the greatest value gains have been in parts of the city that have seen the greatest demographic shifts.

The tax treatment of home ownership is amplifying inequities

The District, like many other cities, has adopted policies to reduce housing discrimination, encourage housing production, preserve some neighborhoods affordable, and increase affordability in others.These policies include building codes for safety, taxation to raise money for services, zoning to preserve neighborhood character, and—much later—anti-discrimination laws.

To promote affordability, there is rent control, public housing, participation in federal programs (such as FHA loans and Section 8 rental assistance), the Housing Production Trust Fund, DOPA and TOPA laws, Inclusionary Zoning requirements, and preservation efforts. These programs have made important gains towards preservation of housing for low-income communities, but they have not stopped the growing cost of and inequalities in homeownership. That these policies have been adopted does not mean they been successful in accomplishing their stated objectives or are free of unintended consequences.[8]

One policy tool that the District uses to support housing is tax expenditures. Tax expenditures refer to various tax reductions and exemptions that aim to reduce housing burdens and homeownership. The District has instituted 30 tax expenditure programs, ranging from property tax exemptions to income tax refunds, for residents struggling with high housing costs.

These expenditures reduced total tax revenue by $163 million in fiscal year 2018—more than what the city invested in the Housing Production Trust Fund. (For a comprehensive list of all tax expenditures, see the Office of Chief Financial Officer’s biennial Tax Expenditure Reports, most recently published this year). This is in addition to an estimated $167 million revenue foregone because of federal tax preferences for homeowners.[9] Importantly, the tax benefits from some of these programs only accrue to current homeowners, and the value of the benefits grow with the value of their homes.

The District’s tax expenditure programs related to housing showcase some of the unintended consequences of government programs on racial equity. Of the $163 million of tax expenditures related to housing, more than half ($88 million) is because of two programs: The homestead deduction and the real property tax cap.

The homestead deduction exempts a fixed amount of housing value from real property taxes for owner-occupied homes. In 2018, this amount was $73,450. The real property tax cap limits the growth in the taxable assessments of owner-occupied homes to 10% (and beginning next year, to 5% for seniors with low incomes). An analysis show that the impacts of these two tax preferences have affected different parts of the city in different ways, benefitting parts of the city where price appreciations have been most dramatic. Furthermore, these policies have created all kinds of inequalities, some systematically reflecting the different appreciations that follow the path of gentrification.

The homestead deduction and the property tax cap operate in different—and sometimes conflicting—ways.The homestead deduction wipes of a fixed amount from each owner-occupied home’s value. Thus, the relative value of the benefit is greater for homes with lower value. The cap, however, yields a much greater value to those who happen to live in neighborhoods that have seen the greatest amount of appreciation. The cap benefits the most who have held longest to their homes and therefore accumulated years of growth in value.

For example, in 2018, homeowners who have purchased their homes in back in 2000 had, on average, 5% of their home value exempted from taxes, and about 40% of this was because of the cap. In contrast, homeowners who purchased their homes seven years later, in 2007, right before the Great Recession, have only 1% of their home values exempted, and the part associated with the property tax cap is about 10% of this value.

Similarly, those who bought their homes last year in 2017, on average, had 0.7% of their home value exempted from taxes, and only 9% of this value was because of the cap.

Importantly, these benefits are more concentrated in parts of the District where home ownership (and wealth accumulation associated with it) is higher. This is shown in the maps below. In both 2009 (the last year before the Great Recession) and 2018, the benefits of these tax exemptions accumulated in relatively high-income neighborhoods reflecting the higher concentration of home ownership.

It is important to note that since 2009, the value of these tax expenditures declined in part because of the Great Recession’s dampening effect on home prices.[10] But more importantly, the value of the homestead/property tax cap expenditures have shifted from Wards 2 and 3 to Wards 4, 5, and 6. In 2018, 53% of the value of the tax expenditures associated with the homestead deduction and property tax cap benefited the rapidly gentrifying Wards of 4, 5, and 6.

The homestead deduction and property tax cap create inequalities within neighborhoods, too. The maps below show the amount of value exempted from taxes for each owner-occupied unit within the same neighborhood for four neighborhoods for tax year 2017. Each dot represents a house, and the color changes from red to black at the median value of the exempted property value ($83,900 for 2017).

In places like Capitol Hill, two homes next to each other could have similar value and very different tax assessments. In contrast, in Michigan Park, very few people benefit from the cap because the value increases that residents of neighboring Brookland experienced has have eluded this part of the city. The same can be said for Hillcrest.

The tax policies that support homeownership could have good intentions, but they result in amplified inequalities which are sharper along racial lines. This is an important example of why we should care about the racial equity implications of our policies, including tax policies.

Once these benefits associated with home ownership are created, they are baked into the home price, and the gains are transitionary—accruing to the person who sold the house at the most opportune time. But the wealth implications last generations, further amplifying the divide communities of color face in building wealth and improving their lives.

Notes:

[1] This is based on ACS’s five-year data summaries for 2012 and 2016, and because it is an average of those five years, underestimates the share.

[2] Estimate based on the Integrated Tax System public extract file dated 9/12/2018. The value includes properties classified by the assessors as residential units. The market value is typically higher.

[3] Gross state product is the value of all goods and services produced in the District. Please note that this value also includes the federal government activities in DC most of which are related to economic activity elsewhere (i.e. defense contracts).

[4] This number is the count of owner-occupied homes in the District of Columbia based on tax records. It is about 36% of the households, a much lower homeownership rate than ACS finds.

[5] Estimate based on ACS’s five-year data summaries for 2012 and 2016 and reflects the characteristics (race, income, homeownership) status of the person who responded to the survey, whom we refer to as head of household.

[6] Owner-occupied refers to homes who were eligible for homestead deduction, which requires a separate application to the city’s tax department. It is possible that some owners did not do this. This counts excludes properties that are tax exempt, or owned by District or other government entities, including those would increase the numbers to 94,198 in 2006 and 99,270 in 2018.

[7] Here we are only including taxable properties. If we include all properties the number is 82.

[8] For a full list of all affordable housing initiatives in the District and surrounding jurisdictions, see Sturtevant, 2016.

[9] This is because of federal conformity on the income tax side: the District’s income tax is based on the Federal Adjusted Gross Income, or FAGI. Any federal tax expenditure that changes the FAGI changes the District’s taxable income. The two examples are mortgage interest exemptions and exemptions for state or local property taxes that flow from schedule 1040. The mortgage interest deduction alone has reduced tax revenue by $76 million in 2018.

[10] There are also policy reasons. First the District passed a law in 2011 requiring that the assessed value of a home equals at least 40% of its market value. Second, tax rates have declined from 89 cents per $100 of value to 85 cents.

North America, along with much of the world, has been building and rebuilding its cities and towns quite badly for more than half a century. To do it properly would have been easy; we used to be great at it. But, like voting for president, just because something is easy to do does not mean that it will be done, or done well.

To rectify the sporadic spread of city planning best practices, I published Walkable City in 2012. The timing was fortunate: while the term was not often used before 2010, walkability now seems to be the special sauce that every community wants. It took a while, but many of our leaders have realized that establishing walkability as a central goal can be an expeditious path to making our cities better in a whole host of ways.

Packaged as “literary nonfiction” and “current affairs,” Walkable City was effective at finding readers, armchair urbanists curious about what makes cities tick. It made its way into mayors’ offices, council chambers, and town meetings, held aloft by people demanding change. Sometimes, change was begun. . . and that’s when the problems started. While the book does a decent job of inspiring change, it doesn’t exactly tell you how to create it.

Hence this new book, Walkable City Rules, an effort to weaponize Walkable City for deployment in the field. A brief excerpt follows.

Rule 4. Sell Walkability on Equity

There are powerful equity reasons to invest in walkability.

Because it favors urbanism, walkability is prey to charges of elitism. Such claims gain momentum as our nation’s limited number of walkable neighborhoods, desired by more and more people, become increasingly unaffordable to all but the wealthy. In the face of these sentiments, it pays to be armed with the most persuasive arguments about why walkability and bikeability are among the most effective tools available for helping to level the playing field in our increasingly inequitable society.

Remarkably, cities with more transit choice demonstrate less income inequality and less overspending on rent.

One third of Americans can’t drive. As of 2015, more than 103 million of America’s 321 million people did not possess a driver’s license. Many more had licenses, but did not feel comfortable driving. When faced with unwalkable environments—the majority of the American landscape—these people have only two choices: to burden others who drive, or to stay home.

Walkability gives the elderly a new lease on life.In unwalkable places, the elderly lose independence much earlier, and end up warehoused in institutions. When they can satisfy most of their daily needs on foot, seniors remain self-sufficient many years beyond the age at which they should no longer drive.

Walkability gives children independence. Most of us would like our children to exercise independence well before they turn sixteen. Walkable environments give children almost a decade of increased self-sufficiency and liberate the soccer mom (or dad) that much sooner.

Transit disproportionally serves the poor and minorities. Almost two thirds of transit riders have a household income of less than $50,000. For more than 20%, that number is less than $15,000. Transit riders are 60% nonwhite.22 Remarkably, cities with more transit choice demonstrate less income inequality and less overspending on rent.23

Walking and bicycling disproportionally serve the poor and minorities.There is a misperception that bike lanes serve principally elite intellectual workers. In reality, a bicyclist (or pedestrian) is more likely to be a minimum wage laborer than a well-off professional. Poor, elderly, and non-white pedestrians are disproportionally killed in traffic. African Americans and Native Americans make up 12.9% of the population, but they represent 22% of pedestrian deaths. In all, people of color (including Latinos) are 54% more likely to be struck and killed while walking in the United States.2 Pedestrians over seventy-five are 68% more likely to be killed than those under sixty-five. And pedestrian deaths are much more common in low-income areas.25 For these reasons, investments in pedestrian safety are investments in social equity.26

Walkability improvements disproportionately help the differently abled.Most visually impaired people can move independently only while walking, and they are effectively disabled by communities that mandate cars for getting around. And every investment in walkability is also an investment in rollability; wheelchair users are among those who benefit most when sidewalks become safer.

Rule 4: When advocating for walkability, use data to prove its social equity benefits.

Yes, the rich do walk and bike a little bit more than the not-so-rich. But the real news is at the top of this chart. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2008-2012. Photo Credit: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2008-2012.

Residents at a Brightwood Park building say their apartments are infested with bugs and rodents and badly needs maintenance, but instead of making fixes, the landlord is trying to raise rent. Now some tenants are refusing to pay until conditions are better.

More than 75 people came out to the Rally to Support the Nicholson Street Rent Strike to chants of “el pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” (“A people united will never be defeated”) on Friday, October 12. This is the second rally the building's Tenant Association has held to push for better living conditions.

The Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC), a local organization that helps tenants organize in DC, has been helping residents withhold their rent by placing the unpaid amount in escrow. That's when a third party (in this case, LEDC) holds onto one party's money (the tenants' rent) until certain conditions are satisfied (maintenance on the building).

Tenant and pastor Latare Whitaker, who kicked off the rally, has lived at 1320 Nicholson Street NW for 20 years. He says he's seen conditions decline as the building transferred from the original owners to children of the original owners, then to a property management company. He says some tenants who wanted to stay were pushed out because of the rent hike and appalling living conditions.

However, like many of his neighbors, Whitaker is determined to fight back: “Whenever you need us give us a call and we will be right there, because united we stand and divided we fall. This is happening all over the city, so we need to work together and build this coalition.”

There was a large turnout at the rally. Image by the author.

Tenants have been demanding better conditions since 2016

This isn't the first time tenants have had to rally for better conditions. Their first rally took place in June 2016 to pressure the building's then-owner Michael Lesesne to reduce rent, follow through on a court order to return money owed to tenants, and maintain the building. Councilmember Anita Bonds also spoke out against rent increases at the event.

The resulting contract stated that the landlord must pay the tenants back all the extra rent money that had been collected. Fast forward to summer 2018: the last repayment occurred and now the new owner, SCF Management, is trying to raise the rent beginning in August. (DC's Attorney General Karl Racine is suing SCF for similar problems at a property it managed in Columbia Heights.)

The tenants are beyond tired of calling for repairs, and now they're refusing to pay an increased rent until these maintenance issues are addressed. The tenant association sent a letter in the beginning of the summer to SCF describing the issues with the building. It said they would pay an appropriate increase in rent once the building was brought up to code.

Nothing changed over the summer, so the association sent another letter giving the company a month to address maintenance issues before they would go on a rent strike. Again, there was no response from the owners, and now more than half of the tenants in the building (about 16 units) have been striking since the beginning of October.

Leaky roofs, bedbugs, cockroaches, mold, and rodents

Several tenants shared their experience with living in the building, including Maria Rodriguez, who says she's been there for seven years. She says this is her first time living among rats, cockroaches, and mice in the US, and with having a landlord who never fixes anything.

Another attendee, Karla Ayala, has been living in the building since 2014. She has bedbugs in her apartment and is fed up with having to buy traps for cockroaches and rats — not to mention the walls that are covered with mold and mildew.

Water damage in the main corridor on the third floor of the building. Note the missing smoke detector. Image by the author.

“I am most worried about the fact that winter is coming and I am on the third floor where we have a lot of water damage on the ceiling because the roof is bad. I am tired of calling and calling and have the landlord come only to not fix anything. This is a contract and he is not living up to it!” Ayala said.

One tenant, Yésika Chicas, let me inside her apartment. Some photos of her bathroom, which she says is the worst part of her place: pic.twitter.com/VCxKgYIOdl

Dania Rivera, who's helping lead a tenant strike nearby at 5320 8th Street NW, spoke at the rally to encourage everyone to keep up the fight. The residents there held a rent strike rally back in April of this year to push for better conditions in their building, which they say is uninhabitable.

Rivera provided an update: “[Since the strike] now they are in court, DCRA has done inspections, and is working with the Attorney General to fight for what is their rights for good housing.”

In the middle of the rally, a giant inflatable cockroach made its way into the crowd to shed to light on the abysmal living conditions. The rally ended with music from Son Cosita Seria, and everyone was welcome to enjoy freshly made pupusas from the tenants as a thank you for the support.

In the middle of the rally, a giant inflatable cockroach made its way into the crowd to emphasize the abysmal living conditions. Juanita McKenzie is on the left, and Maria Rodriguez is holding the cockroach. Image by the author.

Three bills awaiting a vote could help with neglectful landlords

The DC Council is working on various pieces of legislation to tackle affordable housing in the District. Besides Bonds' Rent Control Hardship Limitation bill, there are two others that would update how rent increases are determined under the city’s rent control law. Rent-controlled units are some of the last remaining affordable units in the city, but aren't enough to serve a growing need.

However, none of these bills really get to the issues of maintenance and poor living conditions, which are a common thread at these rallies. Three pieces of legislation proposed in late 2017 would help mitigate these types of issues.

Tenants and LEDC representatives believe the rallies are helping bring attention to local housing issues and are empowering some of the most underrepresented people in the city. There is a petition to support the tenants of 1320 Nicholson Street NW, and so far 45 supporters have signed it. Will the strikers bring enough attention to these issues to make the three bills law?

Top image: Local pastor and tenant Latare Whitaker began the rally with a blessing. Image by the author.

Several new protected bikeways have opened in Southwest DC in recent months. At a length of around 0.75 miles, the new lanes make up most of the 0.94 miles of bike-only lanes installed this year in Southwest. According to its data, DC installed 1.33 miles of shared lanes around the city as well, and there are currently 2.61 miles of protected bikeways and buffered bike lanes under construction.

New and existing bike infrastructure south of M Street SW. Image by the author.

Unlike most of the existing bike infrastructure in the neighborhood, the new lanes are fully protected bikeways. These provide space for two-way bicycle traffic on the west side of 2nd Street SW and the north side of R Street and Potomac Avenue.

The new lanes follow a number of other bike improvements in Southwest, including last year’s Maine Avenue protected bikeway by The Wharf, and some more minor improvements on Banneker Circle.

Image by the author.

Bike lanes on 2nd Street SW. Image by the author.

Most of the area south of R Street SW consists of a former industrial and commercial sites, so the both bike and automobile traffic in the area is usually light – the main exception being during soccer games at the new Audi Field. Nonetheless, a new traffic light at the corner of Potomac Avenue and Half Street provides a signal for bicycle traffic, in a new first for the neighborhood.

Because much of the areas they serve are vacant of homes, jobs, or ‘third spaces’ such as bars and restaurants, the lanes are currently underutilized. This will likely change in coming years, however, as the Buzzard Point redevelopment projects come to fruition.

While more protected bike infrastructure is a good thing, it's a shame that it mostly seems to happen in “Instant Neighborhoods” like Buzzard Point and The Wharf. This reinforces the perception that complete streets are only something for privileged people, even though low-income communities actually stand to benefit the most from safer streets. 1999-2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control show that Hispanic and black cyclists were more likely to die in bicycle crashes than whites and Asians.

Traffic signal on Potomac Avenue and Half Street SW. Image by the author.

Nonetheless, repurposing the space as protected bikeways today is a great opportunity, since there is currently very little competition with car traffic. Even then, the section of the 2nd Street cycletrack in between R and Q Streets is currently occupied by parked cars.

A rougher stretch of pavement on Potomac Avenue SW. Image by the author.

Like in many parts of our region, there are a number connectivity gaps between these new bike lanes and other nearby bike infrastructure. Between 4th and 2nd streets, P Street only serves as a sharrow street for bicycle traffic.

Additionally, the eastbound bike lanes on Potomac Avenue SW are on the wrong side of the street to easily connect to the existing bike lanes on Potomac Avenue SE. The fact that the Potomac Avenue SW lanes are on the north side of the street also makes it difficult to connect to the sidewalks on South Capitol Avenue.

Where else should the city install bike lanes in this area?

Correction: This post previously stated that all the new protected bikeways installed in DC this year were in Southwest, based on DDOT's 2018 work plan. However, some of the other projects listed as “under construction” have since been completed.

Top image: A protected bike land on Potomac Avenue SW Image by the author.